Pizza

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Pizza

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The four seasons pizza Originally from in Naples, pizza is the archetypal gastronomic speciality of the Neapolitan city. Vladimira Dvorakova / age fotostock;

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Pizza is the dish that symbolises Naples and the whole of Italy. Today it can be found all over the world topped with the most varied, and even strange, ingredients. However, the traditional pizza is the Margherita. It has a dough base made purely of local products, thinner in the centre and with the famous and slightly thicker crust around the edges, and is topped with tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella (ask for a Margherita DOC if you want buffalo mozzarella) with a little sprig of basil in the centre for garnish. Legend has it that this particular pizza was invented at the end of the 19th century by a 'pizzaiolo' (pizza chef) who wished to dedicate the tri-coloured dish to Queen Margherita. Fried pizza is another traditional dish, but one less known to tourists. It basically consists of a pouch of pizza dough filled with ricotta cheese, provola cheese and 'ciccioli' (pork scratchings), and more original chefs might add pieces of sausage or ham. The whole thing is then immersed in boiling oil to be cooked.